Troubleshoot Windows SharePoint Services

Help is written to document your Web site in its default configuration. Your team or administrator may have customized the site so that it no longer matches exactly with the information in Help.

• Set an existing view as the default view
• Create a new view to use as the default view

• Go to the Discussion Boards page and participate in a discussion.
• Go to the Document Libraries page and upload a document to a library.
• Go to the Documents and Lists page and add an item to a list, or respond to a survey.

Note  By default, the ISAPI filter for Windows SharePoint Services blocks the use of any ASP pages that are not part of the Windows SharePoint Services installation. If you want to use custom ASP pages with your SharePoint sites, you must put the ASP pages in a separate virtual directory, and create an excluded path for the directory in Windows SharePoint Services. This allows IIS to control the directory, rather than Windows SharePoint Services, and allows the ASP pages to run.

• 64 Single line of text and Choice (Drop Down Menu or Radio Buttons)
• 32 Multiple lines of text and Choice (Checkboxes (allow multiple sections))
• 32 Number and Currency
• 16 Date and time
• 16 Lookup
• 16 Yes/No
• 8 Calculated

Note that in the first three bullets, the number given is the total for all lists of those types. For example, you could have 16 Number and 16 Currency columns, but not 32 of each type.

• Do you have an account on the Web server and does the site group that you are a member of have sufficient rights to view the page? See your site administration for information on access restrictions on the page.
• Are the security settings in Internet Information Services set up to allow you access to the page? See Internet Information Services documentation for more information.
• If you are using a domain account, is the Web server part of your domain and is your domain account a member of a site group that has sufficient rights to access the page? See your site administrator for more information.
• Are you using a Web browser other than Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later? When using other browsers such as Netscape Navigator, the server must use Basic Authentication to allow viewing the site. For more information, see About authentications methods.

1. In Microsoft Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and click the Security tab.
2. In the Select a Web content zone to specify its security settings box, click Trusted sites, and then click Sites.
3. In the Add this Web site to the zone box, type the URL of your team Web site, and then click Add.

Are you an anonymous user (not a member of a site group)? Even though the site may allow anonymous users to view the file in a Web browser, you must be member of a site group with the View Lists right to open the file in an application, and the site group must have the Edit Items right to edit the file. See your site administrator for more information.

Are you a member of a site group? The user group that you belong to must have the View Lists right to open the file in an application, and the site group must have the Edit Items right to edit the file. See your site administrator for more information.

• Does your account have an e-mail address specified?    The presence information appears only when the email address for a person is specified. A user with a blank e-mail address that has only the DOMAIN and username specified will not appear as online.
• Do you have a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible client installed?   You must have a compatible client such as Office 2003 to view presence information.
• Is the virtual server for the site configured to display online presence information?   By default, this feature is turned on. However, an administrator may have turned this feature off.

Some older Web components may not work correctly on servers running Windows SharePoint Services. Ask your server administrator to update these components by using Web Parts that are supported on servers running Windows SharePoint Services.

A Web component error can also be caused by using an unsupported version of Microsoft FrontPage to author components for a server running Windows SharePoint Services. Web components from older versions of FrontPage are no longer supported on Windows SharePoint Services. Delete the Web component and then use Office FrontPage 2003 to add the Web component to the page.

• Are you using a Web browser other than Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later? When using other browsers such as Netscape Navigator, the server must use Basic Authentication to allow viewing the site. For more information, see About authentications methods.

• Windows SharePoint Services cannot import spreadsheets that were saved with interactivity. Try saving the spreadsheet again, without interactivity.
  1. In Excel, on the File menu, click Save as Web Page.
  2. Click Republish: Sheet, and turn off the Add interactivity check box.
  3. Click Save.
• Windows SharePoint Services cannot import shared workbooks.
  1. In Excel, on the Tools menu, click Shared Workbook.
  2. On the Editing tab, turn off the Allow changes by more than one user at the same time check box.
  3. Click OK.

• Click the hyperlink to open the document or save it to your hard disk.
• Edit the document.
• Do one of the following:
  • If you are using Office 2000, on the File menu, click Save as to save the file with its original name to the document library. This will over-write the original file.
  • If you are using an earlier version of Office, save the file to your hard disk, and on the page that displays the document library, click Upload Document to copy the file to the document library.

• Is your server running Windows SharePoint Services?   The document library rules feature is available only on servers running SharePoint Team Services v1.0 from Microsoft. If your site has been upgraded to Windows SharePoint Services, you will be unable to run document library rules.
• Is your server running SharePoint Team Services v1.0?   

  You can manage documents in your document library by using rules to automatically perform actions based on document properties. These actions can be triggered on a scheduled basis or when certain conditions that you specify are met.

  For example, you can automatically:

  • Archive a document by moving it to a hidden folder on your web site after a certain date.
  • Send e-mail to someone to approve documents that have a status such as "waiting for approval."

  You can add exceptions to your rules, such as when a document has been modified within a certain time frame or is assigned to a certain person. A rule will not be applied to a document if any one of the exceptions you specify is met.

  You can also run rules manually, instead of using the conditions in the rule. For example, you might want to run a rule manually to process documents that were in the library before you created the rule.

  Examples of actions you can automate

  The Rules Wizard includes templates that you can use as a starting point for creating your own rules. Using the templates, you can:

  • Set a document to expire after a time limit.
  • Request approval for documents.
  • Archive expired documents.
  • Make backup copies of approved documents.
  • Create a task for each new document of a particular type.
  • Create an announcement for each new document that has a certain word in the title.
  • Send an e-mail notification when a new document is created.

  Add, modify or remove a rule in a document library

  1. In Folders View, right-click the document library folder, and click Properties.
  2. Do one of the following:
     • Add a rule
       1. On the Rules tab, click Add.
       2. Do one of the following:
          • To base a rule on a template, click Start creating a rule from a template, and then select a template.
          • To start with a blank rule, click Start from a blank rule, and then select when to apply the rule.
       3. Click Next, and follow the instructions in the wizard.
     • Modify a rule
       1. On the Rules tab, in the Apply rules in the following order box, click the rule you want to modify.

       2. Do one of the following:

          Change the variables of a rule

          • In the Rule description box, click an underlined value.

          Change what a rule does or change when a rule is applied

          1. Click Modify.
          2. Follow the instructions in the wizard

          Rename a rule

          1. Click Rename.

          2. In the New name of rule box, type a name.

          Change the the order of the rules

          • Click Move Up or Move Down.

          Note  Rules that move documents to another folder are applied as a batch at the end of recalculation of hyperlinks, not according to the order listed in the Rules Wizard.

     • Remove a rule
       1. On the Rules tab, in the Apply rules in the following order box, click the rule you want to remove.
       2. Click Remove.

  Run document library rules or turn them off

  1. In Folders View, right-click the document library folder, and click Properties.
  2. Do one of the following:
     • Run rules manually
       1. On the Rules tab, click Run Rules now.
       2. In the Apply rules in the following order box, select the check boxes for the rules you want to run.
       3. If you want to change the order of the rules, in the Apply rules in the following order box, click the rule you want to move, and then click Move Up or Move Down.
       4. Click Run Now.
     • Turn rules on or off
       • On the Rules tab, in the Apply rules in the following order box, select or clear the check box next to the rule.

• The Alerts feature is turned off: A server administrator must turn on this feature before you can use it. See Configure alerts for a virtual server.
• The Windows SharePoint Services timer service may be turned off. A server adminstrator must turn on this feature for Alerts to function. See Schedule timed jobs.
• The site group you belong to might not have permission to create alerts. See your server administrator for information.

• Was the correct e-mail address specified when you were invited to the site? You may need to update your account information. See Modify user account information.
• Are the alerts being sent to the mail account you use for instant messaging? When you enable instant messenger integration, the e-mail address that you specify is also used for alerts. See Configure online presence information.

• Check to see if your file system is formatted with FAT instead of NTFS.

  If you installed Windows SharePoint Services to a disk drive formatted with FAT, your default virtual server might not be extended. On the Microsoft Windows platform, the security features of Windows SharePoint Services require the NTFS file system. Windows NT includes a conversion utility (Convert.exe) that you can use to convert an existing file allocation table (FAT) volume to NTFS — without losing data.

• Make sure the virtual server exists in IIS.

  Before you can extend a new virtual server with Windows SharePoint Services, you must create the virtual server by using the Internet Services Manager in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or later.

• Is your server running a Windows SharePoint Services compatible search server software, such as Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or later?    By default Windows SharePoint Services installs the Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (Windows) (WMSDE) database. However, to enable the search functionality, the server's back-end database must be running Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or another Windows SharePoint Services-compatible search server.
• Is your server part of a cluster?    If each server in the cluster is not running Windows SharePoint Services-compatible search server software, such as Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or later, the search controls may not appear. To resolve this problem, make sure all servers in the cluster are running Windows SharePoint Services-compatible search server software.

• Are you searching for file type other than .doc, .xls, .ppt, .txt, or .htm? Full-text searching does not include any file types other than .doc, .xls, .ppt, .txt, and .htm in the search results. You can install custom filters to allow you to search other file types. For more information about adding filters to SQL Server full-text searching, see the SQL Server 2000 documentation.
• Is there an asterisk in your search query? You cannot use the asterisk "*" character.

• Did you use boolean function such as AND or OR? The search engine does not support Boolean functions.

• Is the information you're searching for in a list attachment? Attachments to list items do not appear in search results.

• Is the information stored in a column that is not part of the current view? You can't search for information in columns that are not included in the current view.
• Search does not return information contained in list or libraries properties, such as the description field.

• Is there a problem with the search server? There may be an internal error on the search server. Contact your server administrator for more information.